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Your favourite articles of the year

This year, roughly 450 English-language articles were published on Qantara.de. These articles covered a huge variety of topics from the civil war in Syria, the rise of IS, and the Gaza conflict to elections in Tunisia, Turkey, India and Egypt. We also took a closer look at Islamophobia in Germany and worldwide, integration in Europe, and women's rights and freedom of speech in the Islamic world, not to mention a fascinating and colourful range of topics from the world of culture

The list of topics goes on and on. But what articles were most popular with our readers? Here, in descending order, we give you the ten most widely read articles published on the English version of Qantara.de in 2014.

This is what our statistics tell us. But what do you think? Is your favourite piece in there? Thank you for your support and loyalty in 2014 and Happy New Year!

Neo-Nazis, Stalinists, Catholic fundamentalists and pacifists may seem like strange political bedfellows, but they have found common ground in a diffuse brand of anti-imperialism. This left-wing/right-wing alliance's online campaigning and its active support for the Assad regime have led to a lack of solidarity with the Syrian people not only in Italy but elsewhere in Europe too. By Germano Monti

Israel's ground offensive against Gaza is justified but excessive, says Amos Oz in this interview with Dennis Stute. However, the Israeli writer is also critical of the Hamas strategy of attacking Israel from within civilian areas

Andrea Hirata's novel "The Rainbow Troops" is the first Indonesian novel to become an international bestseller. Interestingly, the version available outside Indonesia is very different to the one familiar to Indonesian readers. Bettina David explores why

IS is a child of the late cold war and at the same time the beginning of a total war against the countries of the Arab East. It is the consequence of a collapse of political, moral and social values in the region, writes the Lebanese author Elias Khoury

In conversation with Maria Santacecilia, the star conductor and co-founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, analyses the consequences of the aggravated Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its effects on his orchestra, which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year

Three ethnologists – a Finn, a German and a Swiss – set out to research the laws of love in Egypt. Their work shows one thing above all else: love is an obsession in the land of the Nile – and quite complicated too. By Iris Mostegel

Nationalist Buddhist monks in Myanmar and Sri Lanka are playing a key role in instigating hatred and provoking violence towards the Muslim minorities in both countries, claiming that such action is necessary in order to protect Buddhist race and culture. By Roma Rajpal Weiß

By bursting the bubble of mainstream discourse, there is no doubt that the Gezi protests transformed the horizon of grassroots political praxis in Turkey. Should we expect an equally drastic change in the domain of culture and the arts? After Gezi, is it still possible for the cultural industry to cling on to the easily marketable "self-Orientalising" currency that has been so fashionable over the past 10 years? By Mutlu Yetkin

Raji Sourani is a human rights lawyer and founder of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which documents and investigates human rights violations in the Occupied Territories. Jailed on six occasions for his work, Sourani is staying put in Gaza at the moment, and continuing to work under siege. He tells Roma Rajpal Weiss that people there have lost all hope

Abdullah Hamidaddin, a writer and commentator on religion and the Middle East, wore his daughter's hijab to remind people that the hijab was originally an expression of power, and to point out that if women had ruled, things might have been very different

Migration in North Africa

Facing the risk of exploitation, violence and torture, aid groups warn Libya is not a safe country for refugees. They argue that is reason enough for the EU not to send asylum- ...More

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